Losing my virginity

[jack]

I installed vmware[1] with an Ubuntu[2] distribution, installed the game framework[3] built over SDL, downloaded the example code, installed gcc[5] and some X libraries[6], built them[7] -- and they worked[8].

It is now possible to turn a description of how pictures should move on the screen directly into a program that shows that. I felt sure all, or at least some of those steps would explode horribly, but apparently not.

I was sure *each* of the numbered steps would go horribly wrong, but no, each worked out of the box. Vmware worked straight off, even down to sharing the internet connection. Ubuntu clear and easy to use. Once I installed the necessary packages, the code built, and produced executables that -- worked.

(Why was I doing this at all? Writing a simple action game. However, I haven't done any linux programming ever, and no graphics programming since I was a teenager, and didn't fancy writing all the cross-platform backend from scratch before I started.

(SDL is a fairly well known cross-platform graphics api. CRM32Pro is layered on top of that providing sprites and the like. If anyone can suggest what I should be using instead, please do. (But saying where I ought to have started from can't possibly help.)))

Comments

[simont]

It seems odd that you had to go to the effort of installing VMware and a Linux system inside it, when CRM32Pro is supposedly cross-platform anyway. Is the host platform (on which vmware is running) not Windows? Wouldn't it be easier just to do your game development on that?

Or was your aim here simply to ensure you could compile games written in this way for Linux?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you would think that.

It *runs* on multiple platforms. It's *supposed* to compile on those platforms also, but I spent an hour fiddling around trying to compile it under windows. Now I'm sure that works if I knew how to do it, but I didn't, and I thought it might be easier to download a linux distro and compile in that -- and I was right :)

In fact, yes, that's what I had been going to say at the top of this post. "I was having trouble compiling under windows. I decided downloading vmware, ubuntu, and gcc would be quicker, and it was" :)

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Ooh. I find this interesting. Why do you use Windows as your primary platform?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Mainly inertia. Most of the time I'd be doing simple things, or playing commercial games, which worked, so I never wanted to put in any time on installing another OS.

[(Anonymous)]

Did you finally decide to use CRM32Pro or not?

Compiling examples on Windows and Linux is quite simple so if you have any problem, please, let me know :)

Cheers!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh hello! You're the author? Well, thank you for it!

My game unfortunately is still on hold since real life intervened, but I do expect to go back to it. I expect having managed on linux I'll get it working fine on windows, but if not, I'll ask, thank you!